The Mind of Adolf Hitler
Cover
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| Author | Walter C. Langer |
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| Subject | Adolf Hitler |
| Publisher | Basic Books |
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Publication date
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1972 |
| ISBN | |
| 943.086/092/4B | |
| LC Class | DD247.H5L29 |
The Mind of Adolf Hitler: The Secret Wartime Report, published in 1972 by Basic Books, is based on a World War II report by psychoanalyst Walter C. Langer which probed the psychology of Adolf Hitler from the available information. The original report was prepared for the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and submitted in late 1943 or early 1944; it is officially entitled "A Psychological Analysis of Adolph Hitler: His Life and Legend". The report is one of two psychoanalytic reports prepared for the OSS during the war in an attempt to assess Hitler's personality; the other is "Analysis of the Personality of Adolph Hitler" by the psychologist Henry A. Murray who also contributed to Langer's report. The report eventually became 1000 pages long.
The book contains not only a version of Langer's original report but also a foreword by his brother, the historian William L. Langer who was Chief of Research and Analysis at the OSS during the war, an introduction by Langer himself, and an afterword by the psychoanalytic historian Robert G.L. Waite.
The report is notable for making several correct predictions about Hitler's future:
The wartime report was commissioned by the head of the OSS, William J. "Wild Bill" Donovan. The research and investigation for it was done in collaboration with three other clinicians – Professor Henry A. Murray of the Harvard Psychological Clinic, Dr. Ernst Kris of the New School for Social Research, and Dr. Bertram D. Lewin of the New York Psychoanalytic Institute – as well as research associates Langer notes in his introduction to the book that one of the three essentially dropped out of the project because he was too busy with other work, but he gives no names. "He promised, however, to write down his views and conclusions and submit them ... Unfortunately, not a word was ever received from him" although he did apparently confirm to Langer by telephone that he agreed with the diagnosis of Hitler's perversion.
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